Redearth grows the links with its Ugandan schools

Nine schools in the borough have forged links with children and teachers in Uganda since redearth education was formed six years ago by three Harrow teachers. The charity now has ambitions to help their link schools in a more permanent way. James Cracknell reports ...

HEADTEACHER Lynne Pritchard co-founded Redearth six years ago with fellow Harrow teachers Ronnie Katzler and Di Cosgrove. They were inspired to start a long-term link with the north-western Ugandan town of Masindi after a trip there in 2003.

Redearth representatives now travel to Africa three times a year during each school holiday, and another

60 local teachers have visited the area with them. Each time they bring educational resources and help to provide training.

Mrs Pritchard, who has been headteacher at Whitefriars First and Middle School in Wealdstone for 13 years, said: "We got captured by it because we had such an amazing experience the first time we went.

I answered an advert asking for teachers to work in a local school.

"I got on to the programme to provide teacher development training there and and after that we felt there was more we could offer and decided to start a charity in the UK.

"Since then it has got bigger and bigger. We bring teachers in from all the rural schools.

"They are very limited in terms of resources and there is little opportunity for training.

"We have engaged children in different methods of teaching and we have delivered that to five schools."

Primary school education became free in Uganda in 1997 but teachers

are given very little or even non-existent support in terms of training and resources. Often they are left to teach classes of as many as 300 children in a single class.

"Many children drop out of school and one of the government's objectives is to make it more enjoyable," said Mrs Pritchard.

"The children really want to learn but it is to do with poverty. They often don't know what is going on and they don't make the progress they need to make.

"You have to be promoted into the next year group, so what we are trying to do is get them engaged so they can get through."

Nine Harrow schools are now linked to Masindi, including Hatch End High School and Shaftesbury High School, and many teachers have

visited schools in Uganda thanks to funding from the British Council.

Ugandan teachers have also visited Harrow as

part of the cultural exchange. But Mrs Pritchard explained that to enable the long-term development of teacher training in Uganda, a new education centre will need to be built. This is something for which Redearth has begun raising funds.

The 57-year-old said: "We want to build a resource centre there and we have a major fundraiser interested, which will make the whole thing sustainable.

"We want the teachers to take on training

themselves; that is the future vision of the project and that is why we need this centre. We are very optimistic but it will cost £70,000 and we will need to raise some of that ourselves."

But Harrow's contribution does not stop there. Children from a school in Harrow on the Hill recently climbed Africa's second highest mountain and raised £12,000 for the Henry van Straubenzee Memorial Fund.

The charity, which funds school development projects in Uganda, was set up in the name of an 18-year-old pupil of Orley Farm School, who died in a car accident.

Fourteen 11 to 13-year-olds and two teachers from the school in

South Hill Avenue went on an

expedition to Mount Kenya last month and 11 reached the 4,985m summit. **For more information and to support Redearth Education, visit www.redeartheducation.co.uk.